Since the advent of the electronics era, there has been a long-term trend of scaling electronic component sizes downwards in order to improve their performance and efficiency. Atomically-thin materials are ideal components of such extremely-scaled devices,1 as these materials already have the smallest achievable thickness (Frindt Phys. Rev. Lett. 1972, 28 (5), 299-301). Graphene, one such atomically-thin material consisting of sp2 bonded carbon,2 has been of particular interest for high-speed electronics (Geim et al. Nature Materials 2007, 6, 183-191; Zheng et al. Sci Rep 2013, 3; Ganapathi et al. IEEE Trans. Electron Devices 2013, 60 (3), 958-964; Koswatta et al. IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech. 2011, 59 (10), 2739-2750). Ultra-short graphene field effect transistors (GFETs) are promising for high speed applications due in part to their potential ballistic transport of charge carriers, where the mean free path is comparable to the relevant channel length (Ganapathi et al. IEEE Trans. Electron Devices 2013, 60 (3), 958-964; Koswatta et al. IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech. 2011, 59 (10), 2739-2750; Pugnaghi et al. J. Appl. Phys. 2014, 116 (11); Grassi et al. IEEE Trans. Electron Devices 2013, 60 (1), 140-146).
Reducing the size of devices is one of the driving paradigms of the nanoelectronics and semiconductor industries for significantly improving their performance and efficiencies. In addition, fast all-electronic nonvolatile memory devices and nonlinear devices are highly desirable for both speed and efficiency. The present invention provides an ultra-short nanogap nonlinear device with a channel on the size scale of approximately 10 nm, or smaller, comprising an atomically-thin channel comprising either one or two additional gate electrodes. These devices can show both nonvolatile memory and clear signatures of ballistic, non-scattering, transport which is important for high-speed applications.